by Tracey Tobin
Funny how “love” can make a person blind, deaf, and dumb.
After the series of events that followed, Jared had been, surprisingly, the first one to show up at the hospital. He’d held Tori while she cried and never said a word that didn’t need to be said. He’d visited her every day until she was released, despite the fact that she’d been nothing but awful to him up to that point. In the end, he was the nicest guy she’d ever met, and he was continuing to surprise her with every day that he spent even the tiniest bit of time and energy on her.
As she rinsed the conditioner out of her hair and wondered how someone could be so kind and concerned about someone they really barely knew, Tori saw a strange vision. For just a moment she envisioned Jared as some kind of farmer, with longer hair and a bare chest, feeding apples to a horse as he brushed its mane. The image was gone as soon as it had come, but it surprised her so much that she slipped, lost her footing, and hit her head against the wall as she went down in the tub. With a hiss and a groan she dragged herself to her knees and reached up to her head to check for blood. There was none, thankfully, so she reached instead for her neck to work out the crick she’d just put in it. Her fingers touched a delicate gold chain and her eyes went wide.
I’m still wearing the necklace, she thought. How strange. I swear I meant to take it off last night. With a frown on her lips she reached behind her neck to remove the necklace, but the sound of a car horn blaring somewhere down the street made her hesitate, and without realizing it, in that moment, the jewel around her neck drifted from memory again.
All too soon she found herself dressed and in her Camaro, squeezing the steering wheel so tight she might have left indents in the shapes of her fingers. She wasn’t showing up in the middle of the day this time, so from the moment she pulled into the parking lot there were already plenty of eyes on her. Today a few of the less cruel students ventured to smile and wave, but it was an uncomfortable communication that did nothing to settle her nerves. Tori didn’t want to be the center of attention, not like she once had. She made certain that her hair was laying perfectly around the sides of her neck before she dared to step out of the car.
“You came!” Jared greeted her with a grin as she stepped into the foyer.
Tori did her level best to offer him a genuine smile in return. “I promised,” she said. “Now can we get this over with?”
Krista appeared from behind, took Tori’s hand to give it a quick squeeze, and lead her to first-hour Math, which they had together. Tori had high hopes that she’d be able to hide behind her friend in the back of the room and go largely unnoticed. Her hopes were dashed, however, when Mr Callahan literally stumbled over his own feet in his shock at spotting her. His reaction said it all: clearly the faculty hadn’t expected her to return to finish her senior year. The realization put her in a funk for the rest of the hour, despite Krista’s best efforts to cheer her up. “It’ll get better,” her friend whispered with a reassuring smile.
Unfortunately, Krista couldn’t have been more incorrect. The rest of the day did nothing to improve Tori’s mood, as every class seemed to make her believe she was going a little more crazy each hour. In World History she found herself plagued by a cool breeze that made her shiver uncomfortably, earning her odd looks from classmates in tank tops and mini-skirts who seemed perfectly complacent. In her Language class she kept hearing birds chirping as though they were right on her shoulders, but she didn’t question it aloud because no one else in the class was reacting to the sound in the slightest. Then, when she met Jared at lunch, she saw an almost imperceptibly brief flash of him with long hair, swinging a sword around in an open field. It was only for a split-second, but it made her stumble and spill her drink all over her meal tray. As all nearby eyes turned toward her she tossed the tray on the nearest table and sprinted straight for a washroom.
Once she was safely locked in a stall she took several deep breaths and examined her prescription bottle through watery eyes. She didn’t remember anything about hallucinations in the side-effects, but that had to be it, right? It had to be the medicine taking some kind of toll on her. There was no other explanation. That was, unless she had finally snapped.
When she eventually managed to coax herself out of the washroom Jared was waiting for her by the wall. “Are you okay?” he questioned immediately.
Tori shrugged and shook her head at the same time. “I’m, uh, having an off day.” She made a face to try and play it off as no big deal, but really all she wanted to do was scream at the top of her lungs.
She managed to get through the rest of lunch without further incident while Krista outlined a list of grocery items that she should pick up for her first cooking lesson. She spent her free period in a dark, quiet corner of the school library without hearing or feeling anything strange. She even managed to make it through her entire Health Studies class without anyone making a big deal about her sudden reappearance to school. But then it was time for Chemistry - the last class of the day - which she shared with Jared.
From the moment they sat down together at the lab table in the back, Tori knew that there was something wrong, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Though they were the last table in the back of the room, and the teacher had her eyes on the white-board, Tori had the most peculiar sense that she was being watched. Throughout the first half of the class she cast multiple furtive glances over her shoulder, expecting that this time, or the next time, there would be someone standing there. Jared shot her a few raised eyebrows and she forced what she thought was a reassuring smile on her face.
Mrs Belanche’s choice of experiment for the day involved warming a concoction over an open flame - something they’d done dozens of times before in this class without incident. But as Jared struck the match to light their burner, Tori’s feeling of being watched intensified exponentially. Though she’d already checked a dozen times in the past half hour, and though she’d tried desperately to convince herself that she was simply being foolish, Tori found herself craning her neck back over her shoulder again, praying that there would still be nothing there.
There was an inky black shadow hovering over her with long, skeleton-like fingers reaching toward her face.
Tori couldn’t even articulate her surprise. A kind of yelp escaped her lips as she scrambled to get away and went crashing to the floor with her legs still wrapped around her stool. By the time she’d managed to leap back to her feet and taken a breath with the intention of screaming, it was to find that the shadow-monster was gone and everyone in the room was staring at her with their mouths hanging open. Even chatty Mrs Belanche seemed at a complete loss for words.
“I… I…” Tori stuttered. She glanced back and forth between the class and where the shadow had been only seconds ago. “Sorry, I-”
There was nothing there. There was really nothing there. At a loss to come up with any kind of excuse for her reaction, Tori picked up her stool, sat down, and glued her eyes to the table in front of her. After what felt like an eternity the teacher cleared her throat and returned to the lesson without addressing the outburst.
Jared leaned across the table. “What happened?” he whispered.
Tori shook her head and refused to look at him. Unable to resist the morbid curiosity, she glanced over her shoulder once more, but there was still nothing there. Feeling suddenly very cold inside, she turned her gaze back to the table and muttered to Jared, “I don’t know. Maybe I’m more tired than I thought I was.”
It was an extremely flimsy explanation, but Jared nodded and leaned back into his seat. Tori silently thanked him.
She was starting to become very worried for herself. The idea of medicinal side effects was starting to seem less likely. She’d been through a hell of a lot - no one would deny that - so could she be experiencing some kind of post-traumatic stress thing? But, then again, didn’t people with PTSD usually relive the moments that were related to the stress? What she kept seeing and feeling was a nonsensical j
umble of sensations and hallucinations. It was all stuff that meant nothing, things that didn’t connect to each other or to her situation in any way.
By the time the Chemistry lesson was over she’d come up with no further ideas, but had managed to locate a massive headache. She was exhausted and stressed out, and was wondering if it would be harmful to take her next dose of medicine a few hours early. As they packed up their bags to leave she almost suggested to Jared that they save the bank trip for another day, but then everything she’d just put up with would have felt like a huge, frustrating waste. Besides, she really did need to get this stuff straightened away and over with so that she could take out some cash to live on. She’d been warned several times that it might be quite a while before her parents’ insurance money came through.
So she found herself reluctantly climbing into the driver’s seat of her car while Jared happily joined her for the trip. They cruised through town until they reached Main Street, and Tori knew that Jared was talking to her, but she was off in her own little world. She wondered if she should talk to a pharmacist about her episodes and the possibility of dangerous side effects. She wondered if maybe she’d damaged her brain with all the drinking she’d been doing, or if maybe she just needed a few days of pure, uninterrupted sleep. She wondered when they had planted all these trees along the sides of Main Street.
Wait… she thought with a frown and a furrowed brow. What the hell kind of trees are those? They don’t look like anything that grows around he-
“Tori, look out!”
Jared’s voice snapped Tori out of her daze just in time for her to slam on the brakes. Her car screamed to a stop mere inches from rear-ending the vehicle in front of her, which was stopped at a red light. Her two hands went from the wheel to her mouth as she held back the cry that desperately wanted to escape. All of the trees alongside the road had vanished.
The tone of Jared’s voice next indicated that he was trying very hard to be calm. “Tori, are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to drive? Maybe I should just take you home. We can always do this another day.”
The light turned green and the car in front of them pulled away. Tori could see the bank just a few buildings down the road. As the cars behind her began to honk their annoyance she let her foot off the brake, took the steering wheel, and began to edge through the lights. “No,” she said, feeling like she was wafting through a dream. “No, let’s get this over with. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Jared was clearly unconvinced, but he remained silent as Tori crept the rest of the way down the road and into the bank’s parking lot. As she stepped out of the Camaro her legs almost went out from under her, but she put a hand on the side mirror, steadied herself with a deep breath, and strode toward the building with what she hoped was confident determination. Jared followed close beside, and kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye every few seconds.
It was clear that Tori was having difficultly forcing her brain to work properly, so Jared led her up to the next available teller. When she made no move to take over the transaction, he began rummaging through her purse himself, pulled out the leaflets of papers and forms that she’d stuffed in there, and slid them across the counter. “Sorry,” he told the teller. “She’s, uh, having a really rough time. Please just tell me if there’s anything you need her to do or sign.”
Tori vaguely registered that the teller replied, but she was distracted, straining her ears to hear something else. It was a very faint sound, but she could swear that she was hearing a kind of a rumbling noise, and it was getting louder with each passing second. No more, she thought. Please, no more. I don’t think I can take any more. Her gaze fluttered around the bank, from patrons to employees to the line at the ATM in the corner of the room, searching for even the tiniest hint that anyone else was hearing the mounting din that sounded to her like rolling thunder. There was none. Everyone else in the building was going about business as usual, completely oblivious to the noise that was growing louder and louder and louder.
A hand fell on her shoulder. She jumped and whirled around to see Jared and the bank teller looking at her expectantly. Jared repeated the question, but Tori couldn’t make out his quiet voice over the noise, which had now risen to an almost painful cacophony. She placed her hands over her ears and took a step back. “I can’t hear you!” she shouted. She could barely hear her own voice, but Jared jumped in surprise and suddenly everyone in the room was turning to look at her.
She wanted to cry and scream. “Can’t you all hear that?” she moaned. People began to whisper to one another and a security guard stepped forward with a frown on his face. He looked at Tori and his lips moved, but she couldn’t understand a word.
She couldn’t stand it anymore. With her hands on her ears she turned to run from the building, and as she did so she felt something very warm touch the skin above her breasts. She looked down to find that the crystal pendant had slipped beneath the neck of her shirt and felt unnaturally hot against her bare skin. When she tore her eyes away from its shimmery glow it was to find herself standing in the middle of a large meadow with a stampede of horses - their footfalls like thunder - heading directly for her.
Tori shrieked at the top of her lungs and threw herself to the ground. And then, just like that, the sounds of the stampede ceased, and she was instead surrounded by concerned murmurs and confusion. A man’s voice asked whether he should call 911, and a woman’s hissed at her children to move back. Tori peeked her head up from the floor and found Jared staring down at her, his eyes wide. Her face felt cold, like all the blood had been drained from it. After what seemed like a very long and uncomfortable moment of hesitation Jared rushed forward to help her up, but she scrambled to her feet and held out her hands as though to say, “Don’t touch me.”
“Um… Should I call 911?” the same voice - another teller - repeated.
Jared shook his head, though it didn’t seem like he was so sure of himself. “No, no,” he stuttered. “It’s okay. I’ll take her home.” He reached back to snatch the paperwork from the teller’s desk, and then offered out a hand toward Tori and tried his very best to look reassuring. Tentative, unsure of anything anymore, Tori reached out and let him wrap his fingers around hers. As he did she saw another vision of his face, surrounded by longer, shaggier hair and marred with a scar down his left cheek. She silently squeezed her eyes shut to banish the image.
“Are you sure she’s okay,” someone - the security guard, perhaps - asked. “She looks like she’s in pain.”
“She’s been through a lot recently,” Jared replied, and squeezed Tori’s hand. “I promise that I’ll take her to the hospital if it seems necessary.” Then he began to lead Tori away from the whispers and murmurs of the bank patrons. She kept her eyes firmly closed until she was safely sitting in the passenger-side seat of her car. She opened them just long enough to fish her keys out of her pocket and toss them to Jared, then closed them again for the entire drive home. By the time Jared had gotten her out of the car and to the living room couch she was so exhausted that she fell immediately into a fitful sleep.
She woke later that evening to two hushed voices coming from her kitchen.
“I’m telling you, it’s like she’s seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. By the time the episode in the bank happened she was white as a ghost, and there was this one moment when she looked at me… I swear it was like she was seeing someone else. It really freaked me out.”
Krista’s recognizable tongue-clicking came back as response. “I don’t know, Jared. I mean, all things considered, she seemed okay yesterday. What could have changed so much between then and now? Maybe we should take her to the hospital.”
Tori could almost see the frown on Jared’s face. “Yeah, I get where you’re coming from,” he replied, “but is a hospital really a good place for her right now? I mean, hasn’t she spent enough time in hospitals lately?”
“Point taken, but then what do you suggest? She obviously n
eeds some kind of help.”
“I don’t know… Do psychiatrists take house calls?”
Tori had heard enough. She pushed herself up from the couch and gave a purposeful cough. Jared and Krista immediately rushed into the room with sheepish looks on their faces.
“How are you feeling, hon?” Krista asked carefully.
Tori sat back down on the couch and pulled her knees up to her chest. She gave her friends a wry smile. “Like I’ve completely lost my mind,” she said. “Which is an assessment that you two apparently agree with.”
Jared immediately looked contrite. Krista made a face and rushed to sit next to Tori. As an afterthought she took her friend’s hand and squeezed it tight. “We don’t think you’ve lost your mind,” she insisted. “But obviously something is…a bit off.”
“What exactly happened at the bank?” Jared asked quickly. He had a frown plastered on his face. Tori thought that he had probably been trying to work it out on his own all evening.
She considered the implications of admitting the truth of what she’d been experiencing. Would they have her locked up? She couldn’t imagine so, but in their concern and desperation to help they might tell someone who would. But then, maybe she needed to be locked up. Maybe she was going crazy all of a sudden. Perhaps something in her brain had finally just broken. The more she thought about it the more she decided that she just didn’t care anymore. She had to get it all out before she exploded.